After commenting on Civil Av on the 20th anniversary of NW 255, I was looking at CVR transcripts of different fatal aircraft accidents, and, purely by accident, I saw the following website listed somewhere. I don't remember how I stumbled upon it.

During early 1995, Boeing sales experienced an unconnected but serious internal problem in Europe, though the details were never made public. The German flag carrier Lufthansa discovered that its new Boeing 747-400 aircraft had been fitted with flight directors [auto-pilots] that were vulnerable to American remote-control, ostensibly designed to “recover” hijacked aircraft whether the hijackers wanted to be recovered or not. Lufthansa was not informed about this “free extra” in advance, and was furious that its sovereign aircraft might be covertly “rescued” by America, without the knowledge or permission of the German Government

In a mammoth operation rumored to cost in excess of $800 million, Lufthansa stripped every flight director out of every Boeing in its fleet, replacing them in toto with German systems programmed by the Luftwaffe [German Air Force]. According to a member of the German internal security service in Frankfurt during October 1996, all Lufthansa aircraft had by that date been secured, rendering them invulnerable to remote flight director commands transmitted by any and all American authorities. Under the new intelligence protocols, Russia and France were made aware of these flight director risks.

Hmmm, sounds like yet another recent Teutonic conversion of a latin-rooted word. Isn't there a proper German word, you know, with 7 syllables and lots of umlauts, ending in -keit ? No ? Hmmmm - etymology can be SO revealing

Quoting JGPH1A (Reply 23):Hmmm, sounds like yet another recent Teutonic conversion of a latin-rooted word. Isn't there a proper German word, you know, with 7 syllables and lots of umlauts, ending in -keit ?

Sure...we've got those as well. But for some reason spontan does its job best when served appropriately quick and compact, don't you think?